The AI Bot ‘ClaRAN’ Recognizes The Outer Galaxies Instead Of People

Maybe in the upcoming future, the AI bot “ClaRAN” will completely replace people in exploring the outer radio galaxies.

The one fun fact about this AI programme is that it originates from an open source version in the objected detection software created by Microsoft and Facebook. Facebook has applied it to analyze and recognize faces in photos – One of the highly appreciated Facebook features.

Back to the AI bot, its duty is to scan images of the galaxies that are taken by radio telescopes and indicate what the radio galaxies are. For someone unknown, these galaxies are ones releasing strong radio jets from huge black holes at their centres. However, not all of those have a black hole at the centre.

Dr Wong shared that people could see jets emitted from the black holes when using a radio telescope.

She further said that traditional computer programmes have sometimes had a lot of difficulties in realizing the place emitting the jets because in some cases, the jets would go far away from the host galaxies. With the ClaRAN’s support, the problem will be partly solved.

Until now, researchers have applied traditional computer algorithms to analyze and recognize the deep galaxies. The accuracy rate reaches 90%. However, the remaining 10% still makes them anxious. Up to seven million challengeable galaxies are waiting for us to discover by our own naked eyes because their extended structures are so complex.

Dr Wong hopes that the AI bot named “ClaRAN” will help to reduce the remaining 10% to only 1%. In other words, scientists will have more time to study the unknown galaxies.